Perhaps you desire to pray for our military members and their families, but just don’t know how. Or maybe you have prayed many times—daily, maybe even hourly, for years—and need encouragement to keep on praying. You are not alone.

The eternal impact of this unknown soldier’s prayer reminds me of the Book of Psalms—about two-thirds of which are attributed to a named author and the other one-third are “anonymous.” When we do not know the writer or exact history of a psalm, we are left to imagine what it is that the author is feeling or facing—and how he is reaching out to God for strength, comfort, justice, mercy, forgiveness, grace, healing, blessing, guidance, wisdom. We can reach into our own “story”—our own life circumstances—and know that just as God was faithful in the past (both for the psalmist and for ourselves), He is faithful in the present and the future.

Perhaps before deployment you spent sweet time with each other going over all the good memories of wonderful times together. Then you gave a “charge”—to be careful, remember that they are loved, know that you’re grateful for them, and promise to stay in communication whenever possible. And of course you made plans for your reunion and spoke of how wonderful it’ll be to be back together again.